Anything Everything
by StormsThing1
Summary: I'm the reason she got trapped in this game of death. Now I'll do whatever it takes to get her out safe. I'll be willing to sacrifice anything and everything just to get my baby sister out of her and back to the real world.


"So I put this on like this?" My younger sister asked me as she pulled the Japanese device Nerve Gear over her head.

"Yes, and I already have it plugged in for you." I told her, as I double checked the connection, and made sure the correct game was in the player.

"And to start it I say...?"

"Yes, yes. For language you should pick English, but we're hooked up to go to a Japanese server. Your user name will be what it always is?" I asked her as she hopped up into her bed and lay down.

"Yep!" she popped the 'P'. "Am I ready? Nothing else to brief me on?"

"Not unless you have questions." I looked up. Nearly time.

"Link Start!" she answered my question, and I was left alone in my sister's room, where I was not normally allowed. I smiled and stuck a sticky-note to her forehead, before going through the Jack-and-Jill bathroom that linked out rooms together, and slid my own Nerve Gear over my head, a sticky note with the same message already placed on the forehead. I lay back on my bed and got comfortable.

"Link Start!"

Instantly a pinwheel of colors rushed my head, and different panels flashed by my face as the different senses registered as working. I selected the language, Japanese for me, and I logged in on my account before going into the avatar creating process. Of course I chose some ridiculously hot blonde-haired, green-eyed heroine. I then had to pick my screen name, I chose my default choice that's my user name on virtually every website- Rilliane.

I then spawned into the world of Aincrad according to the text on the bottom of my screen, The Town of Beginnings. There was a lot of babble in Japanese, but then I heard a call in English that I knew was for me.

"Rilly? Rilly, where are you?" it was my sister's voice, run through a voice changer, but still my little sister's voice that I'd know anywhere.

"I'm right here, Cammie." I went and hunted down the voice, coming from a figure that was as small as the system would allow with short brown hair and eyes.

"Let's go shopping." she said in a happy, bubbly voice. "I want a giant sword and a spear and armor!" she smiled, bouncing. "And I wanna go kill stuff!" cheerful seven-year-old, neh?

"Okay." I told her. "Now pick one that you want to have the most."

"Mmmmmmm-Sword!" she decided.

"Okay." I patted her on the head. "Sword it is." I took her hand and began to lead her through the streets of The Town of Beginnings, until I found what looked like a decent NPC-run blacksmith shop. We opened the door with a ding and stepped into weapon paradise.

"Pick one from over there." I pointed to a wall of swords that looked like they wouldn't be way to heavy for her tiny frame. "And try not to pick the most expensive. Please." she had this bad habit of grabbing the most expensive item on the shelf, and I knew that my little warning would do nothing to ward her off of that.

I looked around the shop until one shelf of weapons caught my attention. The battle axes. They were beautiful. I ran a hand over the hilts until one stood out to me. It had a silver handle and black blade, and when I picked it up it was heavy but not overly so. I checked the price, and it was... not unreasonable, considering the staring amount of Col I had. I opened up the interface on the item, and selected the option labeled 'buy'. Another interface popped up, probably the 'do you _really_ want to buy this' notification, and...

Oh.

Oh why.

This game used Kanji. The hardest of the three Japanese alphabets. The _only one_ I did not have memorized.

I had a basic idea of what this was asking, so I felt confident I could just select the accept button in the corner, but stubborn little me had to read the whole message before selecting anything. That led to a five minute ordeal that basically just confirmed what I already knew.

'Are you sure you want to buy this?'

'Accept'

There was a small _ch-ching!_ like a cash register, and the ax disappeared into my inventory, where I equipped it and it's holster onto the hip of my avatar. I looked over to see that Cammie had already bought a sword using her Col, and was equipping a thin sword-like the kind our cousin fences with- to her belt.

"You seem to have gotten along just fine." I told her.

"It took you like five minutes to read the notification." she giggled back.

"Are you reading yours in Kanji? No, so shut up." I defended my self. "Time for part two of that list you gave." I changed the subject off my inability to read. "Let's go kill crap!"

"Yay!"

I grabbed her by the hand and we haphazardly made our way to the hunting grounds, getting lost more then a few times along the way, and eventually being told the way by an older player who took pity on us.

We crept up on a pack of boars, keeping as quiet as possible. "Okay," I whispered to her. "I'll go first." I tried to sneak up on the pack, but one noticed me and turned around, eyes glowing red. There goes that plan of attack. It began to charge, pretty slowly, it is a level 1 monster after all, and I took out my ax. There was a short list of attack to pick, so I didn't waste time with that.

I lifted my ax, and a violet lighting effect graced it as the system recognized the beginning of a sword skill being used. I let the system take my body, and next thing I knew I was on the other side of the boar, and the boar had a red gash across it's side. I could see it's HP in the bar around it's head, that one clean shot had put it just out of the yellow zone. Two more good hits like that and I'd have my first kill.

I hefted my blade again, and, this time choosing a different attack, waited for the boar to get close to me and my glowing blade before I let the system act out the attack. It was a weird feeling, being both in and out of control of your body. It was what you wanted it to do, but not you making the movements, kinda(really) weird.

Now the boar was in the red zone, all I needed was one more hit, and it didn't even have to be a good one. Maybe a good slap across the face? No, no, I kid, I kid. I reused the first attack on my short list and ended up back on the other side of the boar, near where my sister was, and I could hear the shattering of polygons that signaled the end of an entities life. A screen appeared in front of my face, informing me of all the Exp and Col and special drops(if any) I had earned from that kill.

"Wow, Rill!" Cammie was right there, looking all starry eyed at me. "That was a nice clean kill."

"It wasn't that hard. I'd compare that thing to a slime."

"A slime, huh? Should be fun! But it's nowhere near as cute as a slime." she then began to hop around, imitating the little green cubes from Minecraft, a relatively old sandbox game our aunt had gotten us into. She had her mouth closed in a little circle, making squishing noises as she jumped around, and had her eyes open so wide it was a wonder she didn't see the charging boar until it had struck.

"Bwa!" she struck the ground hard enough for a few additional HP to be taken from her bar, and make and Immortal Object notification appear in purple. "That... I could feel it."

"No duh!" I shouted to her. The boar was coming around for a second charge, so I did what I normally did. I turned into a comedian. "Round two! FIGHT!"

Thanks to my warning this time she was ready, and had her sword out and ready to block when the boar came. She was pushed back a bit, but no more came off of her health bar, so that was good. I decided as I sat off to the side that I wouldn't intervene unless her HP dipped into the yellow. I didn't want her dieing, forcing me to go and meet up with her in The Town of Beginnings and be forced to endure her tears about me not helping. But if I helped to soon I'd be yelled at for stealing the thunder. I had ti fund just the right spot to help, right where I'd be worshiped as a hero.

I watched as she lifted the pink glowing sword above her head and stabbed down on the boar, taking a good amount off of his HP. She then went in for an under cut while the beast was still stunned, then another upper cut, then an attack from the side, then the great being was dead. I couldn't see her notification beyond that there was a notification, but from the quaint smile drifting across her face it was good.

"I like this." the decided, eyes glancing up and out the corner, so I knew that she was watching as her HP replenished. She yawned big, but then turned and ran into the pack of boars before I could comment. "Now let's practice fighting as a team!" she called over her shoulder as she lifted her sword.

"Kill stuff? Anytime." as I ran over I could see two other figures practicing, one obviously much better than the other. I found it actually kind of funny, the one that was struggling was obviously the older of the pair.

"Coming at you!" my sister called, and my attention was brought to the great(not really) beast before me. Time to kill stuff.

* * *

"I'm... tired." Cammie said around a yawn not to long later, running a hand through her hair. She lifted her hand with her fore finger and thumb extended, pulling down the menu just as I'd instructed her on how to do before we entered the game.

"Huh, how odd." she muttered almost to herself. She looked up at me with big brown eyes. "You said that the log out button would be just below the help and settings?"

"It should be," I pulled down my own screen, and was greeted by the severe lack of a log out button. "Probably just a bug," I said. "It's the first day after all,..." something felt weird about this situation. That sure is one bug to have, a missing log out button. And it's been a good three hours, surely the admins would have at least said something about it by now, right? "Probably nothing..." I said to my self, following the logic of 'if it's said out loud it must be true'.

"I don't like this." Cammie said, the whine in her voice revealing her young age. "And I'm tired."

I hugged her to my side. "I don't like this either." I gazed up at the sky, noticing that in a few minutes it would be sunset, according to the clock in the bottom of my screen it was 4:39 PM, Japan time, making it about four AM America time. It had taken a lot of sugar and caffeine to stay up this late, and we were both staring to crash. "What d'you say we go stock up on gear? Boost morale?"

"Okaaaugh." she yawned again.

"Let's go." I reached down and tugged on her hand to lift her off the ground.

"Carry me." now she sounded like a baby.

"No way. Walk." she stood and began to 'walk' herself- and by 'walk' I mean stumble like a drunk man. I decided to half give in and pull her by the hand. It took very little time to arrive at a weaponry shop, which for whatever reason was empty.

"What was the other weapon you wanted? A staff?" I looked down at her, knowing full well I had said the wrong thing.

"No, spear!" she shouted at me, punctuating her yell with a slap that made a warning icon flash before her face. Okay, maybe when she's tired as crap isn't the best time to tease her. She wandered to where the spears were and picked one at random. "This one." she said groggily, opening up the purchase window.

"You sure?" I asked.

"Yep, look at the stats!" I did and...

She had picked the most expensive one. Luckily that meant it was the most powerful, but her ability to randomly grab the most expensive one astounded me. Never again will I doubt her. Never will she be in charge of our finances.

"Looks pretty good." I yawned as I put it back in her hands. I looked around the shop, waiting for a weapon to catch my eye. I looked at the bows, it would be nice. Bows were distance attacks and it would be nice to not have to get close to a monster.

Oh, screw it rational mind, you got enough money just buy the thing, no justification needed.

We walked out of the store, me with my new bow slung over my shoulder and quiver on the hip me ax was not occupying. We were now wandering through the city, looking at various stalls, which resulted in Cammie buying a necklace, when a wonderful smell wafted in my nose.

"Rilly! Rilly! I'm hungry! I'm hungry!" Cammie echoed my thoughts, tugging on my hand, pulling me in the direction of the smell. We arrived at a booth where an NPC was selling bread with some kind of flavored butter on top, and I bought two, handing one to Cammie and we found a place to sit down.

She wolfed down her whole roll in probably two minutes, and then she leaned her head on my shoulder while I ate at a normal pace. "I'm gonna sleep," she muttered incoherently.

"Okay, Baby," I responded. She snuggled deeper into my shoulder and fell asleep with ease that only little kids had, I was so envious. I reached my arm around her and ran my fingers through her hair, which felt pretty odd in the game.

I finished my roll just as the durability for the wrapper and crumbs wore off, so I was showered in a fountain of polygons. I leaned my head on Cammie's, and looked at the clock in the corner of my screen. Five PM 'local', so about five AM back home. Not a bad time to fall asleep at, I let my eyes slide shut.

_Doooooooooooooooooong dooooooooooooong._ A ringing bell woke me up, and I blinked my eyes until I could see properly again. There was a bell ringing somewhere, but where? It had only been thirty minutes since I fell asleep, an I wasn't to happy to be woken up now.

"Snooze. Snooze. _Snooze,_" Cammie muttered as she woke up. I wrapped an arm around her. Gongs in RPG's normally did not mean good things. Suddenly, us and everyone else on the street was engulfed by brilliant, blinding blue light. Was this a forced teleport?

I blinked the spots out of my eyes and scrambled to my feet. We were in the center of the Town of Beginnings, along with what seemed like every other player on the game. From the confused glances, we weren't the only ones forcibly teleported here.

The light shining down from the sky became red Warning and System Announcement tiles of the same color spreading across the sky. "What the..." I murmured, along with pretty much everyone else in the game.

"Rilly, this isn't funny," Cammie said as if I had something to do with it. I said nothing, only holding her close as a red liquid that looked suspiciously like blood dripped down from the ceiling, oozing out from between the tiles. The figure of a cloak, missing the man inside it, was created, then a booming voice echoed across the stadium, the figure speaking too quickly for my Japanese-as-a-fourth-language to pick up much more than every third word.

I listened to what he said, knowing a few words and guessing for what the others were. My stomach dropped. No. I was translating this wrong. Please tell me that I'm not right. There's no way he's saying what I think... the horrified looks on the other players faces begged to differ though.

"No..." I whispered. "No, no, no, no!"

"Rilliane? What is it?" Cammie looked at me. "Why does everyone look sad? Or scared?" she was so confused. My cute little sister. My seven year old sister who I got into this mess. I didn't even realize the tears running down my face.

"It's on purpose..." I whispered. "The no log out button... it's on purpose. He's crazy! He wants to control a world... so he's trapped all ten thousand of us in here! There's a kind of microwave in the Nerve Gear... if it anyone takes it off or it shuts of for more than ten minutes, it'll fry your brain! If we die in the game it fries your brain..." I trailed of as he began speaking again, "Two hundred thirteen people have already had their Gear taken off," I listened more to the mad man. "Open your inventory. There should be a new item."

I opened my own inventory, and saw the new item labeled 'Hand Mirror'. I manifested it as an item and gripped it in my right hand, I looked into it and saw my face. Not the face of the outrageously hot avatar I had created, but _my_ face.

Blonde hair with silver-blue stripes draped down to my mid back, and big blue eyes spread just a bit to far apart on my head, red from tears stared back at me in horror. My mouth quivered, making fragmented sentences that never passed beyond them, my cheeks were red with tear tracks. It was possible, I knew, in my technology club we had spoken about the Nerve Gear, and it was most definitely possible for the Nerve Gear to see my face, and the calibration exercises that you have to do would help know your height and body type. It was all real. What he was saying, it's real.

The figure spoke some more. My mind was to frazzled to translate his probably important words. All that I could think of was that we were stuck, and that many had died, and many more were going too. Such a waste of life- of human resources.

I looked down to the face of my terrified little sister. Her bug blue eyes were full of tears and a hand was running through her short brown hair. Her plump pink lips quivered as she spoke, "We're stuck here? In a place where they don't speak English?" her voice was frantic, and I hadn't even thought of that. My Japanese was rudimentary at best, and her's was nonexistent. How were we supposed to get by? Learn Japanese of course. It had taken my two years to get to this point, and I can barely pick out one of three words they say.

The floating figure disappeared, along with the red from the sky. Horrified and heartbroken wails rang throughout the arena, and people began to stumble. Cammie crumbled to her knees at my feet.

"We're never getting out? We're stuck? No more Mommy or Daddy or Chris?" she was sobbing. "We're stuck?" she trembled, her arms hugging herself. I looked around the full stadium, and made a split decision. I lifted her into my arms and sprinted out of the stadium and out of town.

Cammie's arms were around me neck, and she was sobbing silently into my neck. I stumbled down an alley, pulling up my map in front of my face as I navigated my way to the next town over. This was going to be a game of strength, and I wanted to sweep up on the easy quests, and The Town of Beginnings was going to be full. So I wanted to be as far from here as possible, in another place where I can grind levels with my adorable little sister so I can get out of this place and live normal again.

"_You do know that is the most dangerous path,"_ I turned around when I heard Japanese, obviously directed at me. There was a young boy in blue beginner's armor standing behind me, with a sure look on his face.

"_Is it?"_ I asked, trying my best not to screw up my words. "_You're a beta tester?" _really, there was nothing else he could be, to know so surely that we were going on the most dangerous path.

"_Yes, to both."_ he answered. "_You going to the next town?"_

"_Well over here's going to be to crowded to do any decent quests or grinding."_ I responded. "_So yeah."_

_"__I'm Kirito."_ he held out a hand. "_I know this area, which paths are safer than others, if you want I can help you get to the next town."_

_"__That would be awesome," _I shook his hand._ "My name is Rilliane,this is my little sister, Cammie. She's... I think she fell asleep again." _it was true, the sobbing had stopped, replaced by a steady breathing except for the occasional hiccup. And I was getting tired of holding her, the adrenaline rush from when I scooped her up was wearing off. "Cammie." I spoke, once again in English. "Oi, Cammie wake up." I shook her.

"What?" she groaned, rubbing her eyes and glaring at me irritatedly. "I was asleep."

"I didn't notice," sarcasm is my defense mechanism. "This is Kirito." I told her, pointing with my head, "He's gonna help us get to the next town over."

She looked over at him, eyes still glaring irritatedly. "Hello, Kirito," pronounced in the most American way possible. She turned back to me. "Wake me again and die." she snuggled back into my neck.

"_S__orry about her, she hasn't slept in twenty-four hours."_ I told him, blushing kinda. "Cammie, wake up. I am not carrying you to the next town." she made an unmoving sound so I dropped her. I was not carrying her one more second.

"Ow! Rilly, that hurt!"

"Your walking," I told her. "_You can start at any time,"_ I told Kirito. "_She's fine,"_ I waved my hand, after seeing his look.

"But I'm tired!" she complained.

"Get over it! I'm tired too! And now I'm tangry!" tangry is a mix of words. It's a mix of tired and angry, words mixing is a passion in my family. There's hangry(hungry+angry) hired(hungry+tired) and so on and so forth.

"You suck." a weird phrase for a seven year old to know, but she has two teenage siblings, aged fifteen and seventeen, taking that into consideration it's not that odd. At least she doesn't know cuss words. Which will probably change, but I don't really care.

"Too bad."

"_So where you from?_" Kirito asked me, looking slightly amused and slightly annoyed at my speaking in English to my monolingual sister.

"_America. I speak decent Japanese, enough to know what people are saying, but Cammie knows none. Guess that'll have to change."_ I smiled at him. "_We're ready whenever you are."_

Cammie looked tired. "Please tell me we aren't going anywhere."

"You're outta luck, we're going to the next town. Come." Kirito had(finally) gotten that we were ready and was now heading away. I rushed a few steps pulling Cammie along with me and caught up to Kirito. It seemed oddly quiet so I started to ask questions. "_What was the Beta like?_"

"_Less crowded."_ he started, talking a little bit slower. I didn't like that, I didn't need pity and I was going to have to get used to everyone else speaking fluent, fast Japanese soon, so I needed practice now, but I didn't say anything. "_There was also a log out button,"_ he laughed in mirthless humor.

"_Sounds nice. The log out button especially."_ I yawned big, and blinked heavy a couple times. Caffeine was awesome if you needed to stay up late, but when you crash you _crash_. I ran into Kirito, not even noticing he had stopped.

"What? _What?"_ I asked him, accidentally reverting to my native language first.

"_You might want to get your weapon out, we're about to enter the monster zone."_

"_Oh. Okay."_ I turned to Cammie. "Get yo' weapon out."

"'Kay." she rubbed her eyes and equipped her sword.

We began tentatively making our way through the woods, the ruby sky slowly fading to black as we went. Occasionally a monster would appear and one of us would kill it, barely glancing at the stats gained. It was nearly silent as we went, Cammie being too tired to be her peppy self, and me not knowing what to say. It wasn't uncomfortable, but it wasn't comfortable.

Eventually the lights of a town came into view, and I started seeing NPC's scurrying about on their own business. I was a quaint town, with several shops lining the road.

Kirito pointed to a building. "_That's a fairly cheep inn, there."_ he looked back at me. "_I would tell you where to get all the best quests now, but I think it can wait until morning. See you then, I guess."_

"_Wait."_ I called out to him, before he even turned away. "_Maybe we should add each other as friends? It would make it easier to meet up again."_ I felt kind of awkward, but he didn't seem to sense any awkwardness, so that's good.

"_Sure."_ he rooted around in the air before him for a moment, and then a notice appeared before me. Stubborn me would normally take the time to read it, but I already knew what it said and I didn't want to embarrass my self in front of this new person with my inability to read, and I swallowed my pride and hit 'accept'.

"_See you."_ I waved and took Cammie's hand before entering the inn, and buying us a room with my decent amount of Col.

We entered the room, and instantly Cammie was out like a light. I smiled slightly and ran my fingers through her hair. My sweet baby sister. I had gotten her into this. It had only been a couple of hours, and still the guilt was eating away at me. I had stolen her whole life from her. She was only seven, and stuck in this game of death. A tear slid down my cheek, as I changed into a softer shirt, and slid into the bed besides her. I set my alarm clock for eight AM, and slowly slid into unconsciousness myself.

* * *

I breached the water and clung to the wall, looking up at my big brother Chris. He had a towel under his arm and a goofy smile across his face. "What're you looking at?" I asked him, slightly breathless from the long swim I'd just had.

"You are crazy." he stated sliding his bare legs in the pool just as I sat on the edge. "You've just been going, and going, and going."

"Anything wrong with that?" I asked him, wringing my hair out over his lap.

"Hey-Hey!" he looked at me, shocked, "These are my nice jeans!"

"So sorry to ruin your clothes, princess," I did a mock bow. He muttered in Spanish under his breath, as he had become accustomed to doing whenever our little sister was around and we would be yelled out for letting one rip. He slung an arm over my shoulder, and pinched my before tickling me, causing me to giggle uncontrollably.

"S-Stop it!" I laughed.

That was when it got weird.

Chris was gone, and the water was now died red, the sky matching the same hue. "Chris?" I turned in place, gazing around the pool. Nowhere. "Chris?" now I was frantic, my legs making ripples in the red liquid too thick to be water as I turned my whole body around. "I'm fine with you tickling me!" where had he gone?

I jumped out of the water, and began walking on wobbly legs. The concrete area around the pool was empty, no chairs, no bleachers, no spectators, no random children walking random dogs, no aliens trying to eat me, no nothing. I was truly alone. "Chris?" I asked again, voice quieter than a whisper.

A helmet with a visor covering my eyes was shoved over my head, with enough force to send me tumbling to the ground. I expected it to be a short time before my butt hit the hot concrete, but I kept falling and falling, and falling, doing flips and turns and twirls in the air, before my butt made contact with cobbled streets.

I opened my eyes that I hadn't even noticed I had closed, and evaluated my surroundings. I was in a large courtyard with cobbled streets, and small shops lining it. It was a quaint little town, much like the one my family had lived in when we lived in Spain for three years, and it was just as empty as the pool had been.

"Hello?" I called out in the first language that came to mind, it was probably Spanish or Italian looking back on it, since this town reminded me of the towns I lived in in those countries. "Anyone here?"

Almost as if I had muttered the magic phrase, a bright blue light shone, and the courtyard was full of people, mostly twenty-something men and teenage boys. Loud babble rang in my ears, in a language I wouldn't even try to decipher. One little shout amongst the roar caught my attention.

"Rilly! Rilly, over here!" I saw my sister, clad in a small set of armor classic to MMORPG's waving me over from far away.

"Cammie!" her name rolled off my lips, "Cammie!"

I ran towards her faster than I would have thought possible. With every step I took she got two steps further away, it was a loosing battle. I entered a forest, and Cammie called me in deeper and deeper, and I was so frantic to chase her down and hold her terrified face close that I didn't even look where I was going beyond her, just running blindly through the night.

"Cammie!" I screamed again, as her face stopped growing further with every step, and began getting closer. I arrived into the clearing she was in just in time to see a sword pierce through her chest. She looked down with a face of surprise at the red shards flying from the wound as her HP depleted. "Cammie, Cammie, pull the sword out!" I shrieked at her, watching in horror as her HP went into the yellow zone, then the red. "Pull it out!"

But she merely looked up at me with a puzzled but calm face. Then she broke into a smile. "Rilly, you came," and with the sound of shattering glass and an explosion of polygons, my dear baby sister was gone. Gone from this world and the real one.

"Cammie!" I screamed, clawing at the shards as if grabbing one would bring her back to me. "Cammie! Cammie! No, Cammie! Don't leave me!" I cried as each shard I touched broke into smaller ones and disappeared, each one taking a piece of my sweet little sister with it. "Cammie," I whispered my voice hoarse from yelling.

I looked out with a dull expression. Gone. My one joy in the world was gone. Forever and ever. My only joy in this world of death was gone. I flopped onto my knees and my head jerked at the impact. Gone. I lolled my head to the right, golden sunshine that seemed far to happy for what had happened warming my damp cheeks. I stood and began to walk shakily towards the sun. she was gone. I leaned on the railing and looked over the cliff.

"_No, don't..."_ a little pixelated voice rang in my ears from far away, "_Don't..."_

I stepped up on the rail and looked down on the bed of clouds. They looked like cotton candy, or a soft feather bed. Would it feel soft and bouncy, and taste like sugar if I were to jump off of it, and plunge down into them?

_"__Don't, please..."_

"Swimmers at your ready." I stood up straighter on the wall.

"On your mark." I bent down at the waste and gripped the outer edge tight with my shaky hands.

_"__Don't, please!"_

"Go!" I launched myself off as though diving into the pool for a race. The wind rushed through my hair as I fell down, down, down.

I woke with a jolt, a small ringing echoing in my head, as the time hit eight AM. Tears streamed down my face, breaking into polygons when they reached my chin. That would never happen. I would never let it.

I stood up and stretched like a cat, one vertebrate at a time, and looked around the room, blinking as I took it all in. I tapped the light on the bedside table, illuminating the small wooden room. It was simple, really just a bed and a table in the corner, but not much else was really needed. In the beta these rooms were probably used as places to have your character while you logged out. Now they're the alternative to sleeping on the streets.

I noticed in the corner of my vision there was a pulsating icon, looking just like the one that flashed on my phone whenever I got a text, so I wonder what this could be? I opened the message and prepared myself to battle through a crapload of Kanji that would take a couple minutes to read.

There actually wasn't that much Kanji, Kirito must've taken pity on me, and I was done reading the message in only a few minutes.

'_Whenever you're ready I can show you the best grinding places'_

Kirito was really too nice. All that I had really expected was him to lead us here then ditch us, but it was kind of nice, having a friend. I changed out of my softer shirt and back into my starter gear-that I will probably update soon- and reached up to my hair. It was perfect, hardly tangled at all. I sat on the edge of the bed running my fingers through it, feeling the silky feeling that was nothing like real life.

A little sniffle caught my attention, coming from the bed. Cammie had her eyes open, and tears were running in a steady stream down to the pillow. "It's real?" she asked in her shaky voice. "We're really stuck here? We're never gonna see Mommy or Daddy of Chris ever again?"

"Yes." I told her. "It's real. We're stuck here."

"It's true! We're never gonna see any of them ever again!" she began to bawl. She shoved her head in my lap and sobbed.

"No. We will see them again. Soon. So dry your eyes. Kirito, the boy from last night- offered to show us the good grinding spots. So we can level up and get out of here faster!" I smiled at her even though I doubted our ability to survive. I would try my hardest to get her out of this game. In the mean time, I would try to make her life as normal as possible while trying to get out.

"Really?" she sounded so miserable.

"Really." I did my best to sound peppy. "We'll get out of here before you know it!"

She rubbed at her eyes with her wrist, and already she looked so much happier. Her face that had been twisted with the game's over exaggeration of sorrow was no lighting up in happiness. "Thank you." she whispered, before launching herself at me and hugging me so tight I thought I might choke. "So much. I know we'll get out of here. Thank you."

I hugged her back, grateful for her words that reassured me. Of course we'd get out. Of course we would. Of course.

"So what do you say? Want to take up on Kirito's offer to show us the good grinding spots?"

"Yes, but first... could you teach me some Japanese? To thank him?" she looked up at me and I smiled.

"Of course." I hugged her.

"And some food?"

"Of course." I laughed and hugged her, the empty feeling consuming me too. It wasn't like real life where you could feel your stomach beginning to eat itself, more there was just something within. But she wasn't just eating to rid herself of hunger. She wanted normalcy, I could tell.

"Let's see if we can hunt down some eggs and bacon."

"And toast!"

"And toast."

* * *

**A/N: I hope you like it. I've been writing this for a while, and finally feel confident enough to post it. I don't own, in case you didn't know that. see ya next time I post!**


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